Run-ons and run-ins

November 2007 - Posts

• (Top) 500 reasons to be cheerful

  It’s that time of year again, well it is tomorrow at least, when the most eagerly awaited copy of PrintWeek hits people’s desks. I am, of course, talking about the PrintWeek Top 500. And it reveals that virtually across the board profit margins are on the up. I know, I can hardly believe it myself (in fact, I got the team of accountants at Grant Thornton to double check the figures). But it’s true, the average profit levels have improved year-on-year – the only sector that showed a slight dip was the band that included firms with a turnover between £9n and £12.5m. On the whole this is fantastic news, although we’re still only talking about margins between -0.34% and 3.36%. So while it’s unlikely that Richard Branson will be entering the sector any time soon, at least we’re headed in the right direction and we’ve bucked the downward trend of the past four years. Who knows, we could get back to the heady days of 1998 (when the average margin was over 6%) before we know it! Posted Nov 28 2007, 04:24 AM by Darryl Danielli with no comments

• Lost and (not) found

  Alistair Darling’s confession yesterday that the personal details of 25m people had been ‘lost in transit’ between HM Revenue and Customs and the National Audit Office is smothering many of the newspaper front pages today. While it’s utterly shocking that that the two CDs, which  included information such as names, addresses, dates of birth, child benefit and national insurance numbers, and even bank account details, have gone missing -what’s even more disturbing is how easily it happened. It just got me thinking about the information printers hold on digital files. Of course, many direct mail printers have to handle sensitive client data every day, but I would have thought every type of printer has a database of clients and jobs that, to them, is priceless. The thought of this getting into the wrong hands, perhaps as a self-awarded leaving gift for a member of staff, is palm-moisteningly scary. Data is, in many ways, currency and while you can’t take it to the bank, it is undoubtedly seriously valuable. So perhaps the furore surrounding the ‘Child Benefit two’, will make us all look at the procedures we all have in place? Posted Nov 20 2007, 11:50 PM by Darryl Danielli with 2 comment(s)

• Will culture dictate winners and losers of Roto Smeets Quebecor?

  On the face of it, last week’s deal between Quebecor and Roto Smeets parent RSDB for the Canadian giant to sell the Dutch outfit a controlling stake could be seen as positive for Quebecor World’s Corby site. I truly hope it is as the staff and management there are in dire need of some good news. But I must admit that I’m a little concerned (remember I’m a journalist, so I have to be a natural born cynic). Roto Smeets’ chief executive exclusively reveals in tomorrow’s PrintWeek that he is confident of generating cost savings for the new enterprise, named, in Ronseal style: Roto Smeets Quebecor. So we can probably assume that some sites will be closed, where they mirror other sites in output and location perhaps, or if they’re just not viable. If (and it’s a big if, no one has even hinted that Corby is set for the chop) it boils down to choice between closing Corby and say a French plant, my worry is that the Draconian labour laws and all-powerful unions across the Channel might just tip the balance in our Gallic cousins’ favour? After all, the path of least resistance tends to be the most trodden! Posted Nov 14 2007, 03:20 AM by Darryl Danielli with no comments